Bront said:
Ekilu will wander the streets, looking for other Darfellan, and generally letting his spirit guide take him wherever it seems drawn, as he observes and listens for gossip on the street.
In wandering the streets, doing as much climbing as he might do in a ship's rigging due to the vertical nature of the city, he spies a great variety of people, a great deal of them touched by earth or water. Earth, mineral, water, ooze, steam, and salt genasi abound, along with the raptorans and aaracroka you saw flying about earlier. You do spy a Darfellan, or rather, a Darfellan spots you, as you hear the high-pitched exclamation of "Whiteskin!" in Darfellan. Whirling around, you spot a sturdy Darfellan man wearing sharkskin leather trousers, tattoos of contrasting white and black on his smooth skin, necklaces of sahaugin teeth around his neck. The man looks entirely startled and awed.
Erekose13 said:
Vaukriel will descend and inquire at both shops the cost for their services, he chooses to enter the Whispered Secret first.
Vaukriel will learn that the Whispered Secret specializes in discretion, so much so that the magics employed here are done in a manner so that the mages casting them never know the content of the messages they send. One can purchase a potion of
sending for 2,250gp, or an
animal messenger with
secret page cast on the page for 360gp. The trigger word for the
secret page is told to the animal by the purchaser, a trained raven, who will only reveal it to the recipient by the means of a
geas placed on the animal. The Magic Mouth does large-volume business with the
sending spell, charging 200gp per casting, though your message is probably heard by no less than three people during the transaction. Probably some people use code words their recipients understand to keep some semblance of privacy.
Voidrazor said:
As Nissa is heading to investigate Lupaz's leads she hears a commotion around the next corner.., followed by a tugging on her leg. Looking down she can barely make out the camouflaged form of Oobobooboo. Moments later a pair of merchants burst around the corner yelling, "Stop! Theif!"
Unless Nissa stops them they keep running. Oob holds up a knickknack of the sort sold to less discriminating tourists the world over. "They try take my new shiny. Look."
Oob has managed to get ahold of a small sculpture of the Crystalline Falls themselves, crafted in "Genuine Bluegorge bluestone and Crystalline Falls crystal!" It's not too badly crafted... then again it could have been made out of charcoal and glass shards for all you can tell. [sblock]If you want to trail along to Nissa's appointment, feel free.[/sblock]
Rystil Arden said:
*Nissa will keep in contact with the tempest twins and use Lupaz's leads to ferret out the suppliers.*
*If she deems it appropriate for a time elemental to appear here in person, she's confident enough in her disguise and acting skills (which are around +30) to try to pull it off, but if they work through middlemen, she's happy to turn into one of their minion races and go for the bluff. She knows enough about Ananke and the general court time elementals to pull off either pretty well, and so she'll find the supply lines and ask the tempest twins to disrupt them if they can.*
Lupaz knows the city disturbingly well, for he tells you immediately a place where you can find what you need, a store called the Enchanted Nexus. Sweeping off to commit crimes that will bring down the wrath of a kingdom down upon your head... even more so than usual... Nissa slips into an alley and a common time elemental slides out the other side. The Nexus is known to coordinate all kinds of trade agreements; it operates on a large scales with dozens of powerful merchants, baronies, duchies, and kingdoms. All of them are perfectly legitimate... but according to Lupaz the place is also capable to funneling magic items to customers who don't care how they're obtained. It's run by an ancient human wizard called Draco who's never seen behind the counter. Supposedly he lives in the tower over his shop and conducts business directly with kings through his crystal ball. A dozen apprentices of all races, two azurines, a spellscale, four ghost elves, a void genasi, two dream dwarves, a radiance genasi, and an
awakened octopus that lives inside his water elemental familiar run the shop itself.
Despite the shop's great volume of trade, the place seems quiet and discrete, being in a cul-de-sac at the end of a long street. Only a single man, a whisper gnome, was inside when Nissa-the-time-elemental swept in, and he vanished about two seconds after she arrived. She didn't actually see him leave either... weird. The Enchanted Nexus was dimly lit with blue mage-lights, its shelves thick with neatly arranged and labeled artifacts. Potions, scrolls, and wands were accompanied by small illusions that illustrated their effects; odder magic items had either the same illusions or written descriptions. A few, including a crystal skull, a small crystal sphere nestled in velvet along with four colorful stones, and blob of some mirror-like substance, had notes that one had to see the counter for descriptions or demonstrations.
When Nissa came in, the colorless void genasi stepped up to the counter. Two ghost elves were also on duty, but one vanished from view completely and the other slipped behind a curtain to a back room. Void genasi had also no color, and this woman was no different. White skin, black hair cut nearly to her scalp, and black pools for eyes; her entire body was wrapped in strips of black cloth, leaving just her face and hands free. Her expressionless face regarded Nissa keenly. “
Have you need of words with the master? Or will I suffice for your needs?” she asks in a toneless voice.
Kelleris said:
And with that comment making Lupaz wonder if Trebuchet might pass the intimidating test and completely flunk the subtlety test, Lupaz leads the warmage into the darker crevices of Bluegorge, looking for someone who might be willing to do business. Lupaz leads the way, telepathically guiding Trebuchet to their quarry, and as the night goes on and the people they deal with become harder and less trustworthy, the hound's visage grows more and more terrible. In the darkest hours of the night, a black, cat-like shadow joins the duo. By the time they finally find the person they're looking for, word has probably already reached him or her that the construct spellcaster and his strange pets have serious business to conduct...
[sblock=Isida and Shayuri]That "black, cat-like shadow" is my Dark Companion (from the PHB II), and he'll do a little extra intimidating for us.
I'll make a Gather Information check to find a spellcaster (clerical or wizardly) who can cast the sending spell, is willing to do it discreetly, who is not
entirely untrustworthy, and preferentially one who bears or can be convinced to bear a grudge against the Kingdom's new "rulers." With any luck, there'll be multiple names and I can get Trebuchet to roll Knowledge (arcana) and myself to roll Knowledge (religion), depending on their spellcasting persuasion, to narrow it down to the best choice(s). But beggars can't be choosers, so I won't be surprised if there's really only one viable option that meets all of the criteria to a reasonable degree and that we can find.
Also, I'm not sure how you want to handle this, Isida - regular speed or fast-forward? It's fine by me if you want to skip a portion of the game where two PCs are split from the rest, but if that's the case you should know that I plan to use curses liberally to inflict -13 penalties on the skills people are using to oppose Trebuchet's end of the deal. And in any case, my main contribution here will be finding the people to make the arrangements with - Shayuri's going to have to decide how he wants to proceed from there.
So, without further ado, some skill checks:
Gather Information to locate a suitable spellmonger with Trebuchet. (1d20+17=36)
Knowledge (religion) to vet any clerical spellcasters my Gather Information turns up. (1d20+5=19)
Intimidate check to keep any of the crooks and scoundrels we deal with from getting any "clever" ideas. (1d20+21=31)
Does all that sound good to you, Shayuri? Lupaz will lay out "the plan" before we actually head out, of course.[/sblock]
Descending into the Blade, the part of Bluegorge where the Gorge actually meets, is never a pleasant experience. While Lupaz knows about the Whispering Secret and the Magic Mouth magical message services, he doesn't want to be associated with anyone too well-known. Simply being seen in a place of discretion could be devastating, and Trebuchet is hard to disguise. Descending to the lowest levels, in more ways than one, offer a degree of security in the desperation of the inhabitants. Inquiring about who is needy, half-way trustworthy, capable of casting what they need, and not kindly disposed towards the time elementals is difficult, and you rouse the ire (or avarice) of a few unsavory characters during your search.
When one seemed to be ready to try to do something unpleasant to Trebuchet, he found his own fingers betraying him when he tried to draw a knife, and his feet clumsy when he tried to follow them discretely. Eventually the problem took care of itself, as a incautious thief in the Blade is nothing more than target practice.
It was late, past late, when Trebuchet and Lupaz found themselves at the doorstep of Sho'brakka the Dreammind. The Dreammind was said to be nothing more than a fragment of some dreamword himself. Or someone who lost himself in dreaming years ago and never quite came back. Or someone who was barmy and just talked funny out of the side of his mouth. But despite his odd reputation, Lupaz had determined the man did indeed have the skills needed to pull off what must be done. The building itself seemed to be no more substantial than soot and shadow, its door little more than a curtain. Going inside, the two are in pitch-blackness, and to Lupaz all is in shades of black and white. Curtains sway in a breeze that comes to his nose as smelling of cinnamon and nightshade, and the floor is thick with dark mushrooms. As they wait for a moment, a faint blue glow begins to issue from the fungus, lighting up the area enough for the two to see. In the corner sits a figure, heavily cloaked, only a faint gleam of the blue light on his spectacles reveal it to be a person. It reaches out a gloved hand and gestures for the two of you to come closer.
In front of it lies a flat stretch of dirt and it scrawls in it pictures of a sundial surmounted by a crown. Then it crosses a line through it, and then draws a curved line like a smile, or more accurately, a smirk. The hand waves at the dirt, and Lupaz and Trebuchet both realize something suddenly; there's no noise. None at all, no wind, no faint sounds of the Dreammind scrawling in the dirt, nothing, nothing at all...
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